Many Columbia residents and leaders are pushing back against proposals to turn over management of the village community association buildings and neighborhood centers to the Columbia Association.
Carrying signs with messages that included “Don’t DOGE the villages” and “Hands off our halls,” about two dozen residents packed a meeting of the Columbia Association board on Thursday night to voice opposition to any takeover of village facilities.
Kat Uy, a Wilde Lake village resident, told the board that she didn’t see the need for making a change.
“It just seems like this entire thing with [the] Columbia Association taking over the autonomy of the villages to do what is unique to a particular village is kind of a money grab,” Uy said Thursday night.
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“It isn’t broken. We were doing fine,” she added.
The Columbia Association board was scheduled to discuss the options at Thursday night’s meeting, but removed the agenda item at the start of the meeting.
“I think we’re going to have a lengthy agenda tonight and it would be in our best interest to keep on with keeping on,” said Collin Sullivan, Town Center’s representative on the Columbia Association board.
The board approved his motion to delay consideration of the matter, 7 to 3. Among those voting against the delay was Reg Avery, Long Reach village’s representative.
“We need to have an honest discussion. … we need to spell out exactly what’s going on because there are a lot of concerns,” Avery said. “There are a lot of people sitting out here and standing as well waiting to find out what’s going to happen.”
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The board agreed to extend the public comments section to hear from residents — including community association leaders, village managers and former board members — who had packed into the meeting room to discuss the issue.
Since the planned community of Columbia was founded in 1967, the Columbia Association, which in many ways functions like a local government, has owned the two dozen community buildings and neighborhood centers managed by the villages, which pay no rent. Each village oversees one to four buildings.
Village leaders have questioned what would happen to building revenue that they rely on to hold festivals, flea markets, pool parties and other events.
“There’s a lot of references to the villages losing revenue. This is untrue,” Columbia Association president and CEO Shawn MacInnes said in a statement.
MacInnes said the staff proposals would increase revenue to the villages while reducing expenses.
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County Councilwoman Deb Jung, whose district includes five of the 10 villages, asked the board Thursday night to “support the village associations by allowing them to continue their independent control of these rental facilities.”
Bill Santos, chair of the Columbia Association board, said earlier this week that the “goal was never intended to imply a takeover but instead a study to see if CA could first identify a financial inequity” among the villages because of the “unequal distribution” of neighborhood centers.
While many of the board members “did not fully endorse” the view, enough believed it was worth investigating, said Santos, who represents Wilde Lake.
Columbia Association staff forwarded three options to the board, but said only the second and third options were viable. The options are:
- The association would manage the 10 community buildings, while the villages would run the 14 community centers;
- The association would manage all two dozen buildings;
- The villages would handle customer-facing and on-site services, while the association would provide a centralized system for building reservations and administration.
MacInnes said there was “clear” communication that the centralized system would process transactions and the villages would still receive the revenues.
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Lyn Locke, Town Center’s executive director and village manager, said Thursday night that the village does not support a centralized book system or management changes. Instead, there should be a fourth option.
“We suggest … to let the villages manage their own spaces and retain 100% of all revenues as the managing agent of the building and conduct all negotiations and contracting for all events and lease agreements,” Locke said.
There is no set date at this time for the village community management discussion to come back on a board agenda. It’s up to the board operations committee to add the discussion onto a future meeting agenda.
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